Via C-SPAN: “Georgetown Law Center student Sandra Fluke testified about women’s health and contraception. She had been blocked from testifying at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee the previous week on the 2010 health care law regulation requiring employers and insurers provide contraception coverage to their employees. Committee members noted that the previous hearing only had men as witnesses, leading Democratic leaders to call a separate hearing to let a woman’s voice be part of the discussion.”

“Following your rejection by the Republicans from the panel,” Pelosi declared, “we’ve heard from over 300,000 people saying we want women’s voices to be heard.”

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) went an order of magnitude higher. “You certainly speak for millions,” he said.

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) revised that further. “I know you’re speaking for tens of millions of women,” she informed Fluke. “Can you think of any reason why [Issa] would be so adamant that your voice should not be heard?”

The DCCC had sent out a petition and fundraising e-blast earlier this week, that read in part:

“First, Republicans held a hearing on women’s access to birth control coverage with five men and NO WOMEN.

Now, In a last-minute move, House Republicans have apparently changed their own rules to prevent Congressional television cameras from filming the testimony of Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student that Republicans refused to let testify last week on women’s health issues.

We’re calling on Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader Cantor, and House Administration Committee Chairman Dan Lungren to immediately reverse their decision to deny Sandra the right to have her testimony televised.”

They did not. So the Democrats had to improvise, if they wanted the denied testimony to get out to the world.

Sandra Fluke was the lone witness at an unofficial Democratic-sponsored hearing. While the rest of the Capitol was mostly empty, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, three other Democrats and dozens of mainly young women supporters crowded into a House office building room to applaud Fluke as she spoke of the importance of reproductive health care to women.

Prominently displayed by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., was a photo of five religious leaders, all men and all appearing at the invitation of the Republican majority, testifying last week with Fluke visible in the background, sitting in the visitors’ section.

“We almost ought to thank the chairman (Rep. Darryl Issa, R-CA) for the lack of judgment he had,” in denying a seat to Fluke, Pelosi said.